


Goals

by halfeatenmoon



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Disaster Lesbians, Fencing, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: It's not unusual for Juri to find a rose in her locker after the fencing team practice. Itisunusual to then find one of her students brawling with the fencing team's resident lurker.
Relationships: Arisugawa Juri & Original high school students
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Goals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PaintedYertle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaintedYertle/gifts).



There's a rose in Juri's locker again.

The first time this happened, a term into her coaching tenure, she felt her blood run cold. She didn't wear her rose signet any more. There wasn't even a rose garden at Ohtori any more; Himemiya's old greenhouse had been given over to the whole student body now, raising all manner of plants for their biology class. And there was no way the duels were still going. She would never have agreed to teach here if they were. Still, it wasn't until she noticed the cheap red ribbon around that first rose, a sign it was bought from the florist down the hill, that Juri could breathe easily.

Today, she doesn't bat an eye. This one is red, like they usually are - occasionally pink or white, but none of the exotic colours that Himemiya used to produce. She'd gotten past the point of feeling uncomfortable about a student having a crush on her and now mostly found it amusing. Had she been friendlier with the other teachers, she would have enjoyed speculating about who it was. (Or maybe some of the other teachers tease her about it but that doesn't bother her in the slightest any more.) There were several contenders on the fencing team who worshipped her to an embarrassing degree. She had once heard Tanaka refer to her as "lesbian life goals", which made her cringe so hard that she thought she was going to launch herself out of the room. But the roses are sweet, as long as it never goes any further. It's the kind of thing Juri might have done herself at high school if she hadn't been such a damn mess.

She's interrupted by the sound of voices around the corner. Before she can think about it she has her epee back in her hand and is sprinting for the gym floor. There were half-formed visions in Juri's head, of unwanted kisses and boys who wouldn't hear no. When she does find the two girsl in the gym, for a moment she thinks they _are_ kissing, and she's about to think, _finally_. But then they roll over and one of them snarls, and she realises that they're both digging their fingers into each other arms. Her first instinct was right; this is, in fact, a fight.

"Enough!" Juri said, sharply, and they instantly sprang apart.

She stared at them with some dismay, although she wasn't entirely surprised. Not at Mitsuki, anyway. The girl wasn't one of her fencing students, but Juri had often seen her on the mezzanine during fencing practice, watching everything from above with a stone-faced blankness that made her stand out among the observers who gasped with every move. From what she could tell from the other teachers, Mitsuki had a reputation for toughness, for being unladylike, and for being an absolute loner. If Juri hadn't been such a snob in high school, Mitsuki was the kind of student she might have gotten along with.

To find _Sayaka_ in a fight, though, the fencing team's _captain_ , was nothing short of alarming. Sayaka was a model student, with high grades and a perfect record with teachers, always overexerting herself for the fencing team. She adored Juri, so to find her brawling in the fencing gym like a hooligan was utterly baffling.

"Well then," Juri said, looking between them. "Sayaka-san, would you like to explain the meaning of this?"

Mitsuki leered, "Yeah, would you, Sayaka-san?" and Sayaka blushed a furious red.

"Wait your turn," Juri said to Mitsuki, with a practiced glare. "Sayaka?"

"Mitsuki was snooping around."

"Mitsuki snoops around our practices nearly every day, and I've never found it a problem before. The fencing team has always had some loyal fans."

Juri kept her gaze on Sayaka, but noted with satisfaction the way Mitsuki flinched.  
"Yeah, well... she was... she was mocking... bringing disrepute to the team!"

"Really?" Juri cocked an eyebrow at Mitsuki. "Is that so? How, exactly? I don't believe anyone else was here to see it."

Mitsuki was shifting uneasily, biting her lip, like she couldn't decide what to say. Which is when Sayaka jumping in and said "I saw it, and I'll tell you why..."

"Yeah, and then you can explain why you got pissed off at me for doing a perfectly _nice thing_ ," Mitsuki snapped, "Just because _you're_ in love with..."

Sayaka clapped a hand over her mouth. "I am _not_!"

Mitsuki ripped it away. "And you just hate me because you're too much of a _coward_ to do what i..."

"Oh _I'm_ the coward, when you do this in secret for moths and..."

Juri snapped her fingers. Sayaka instantly clammed up, and Mitsuki did too.

"Well, that was interesting enough, I suppose, but it doesn't change the fact that slapping each other doesn't count as fencing and is therefore forbidden in the fencing gym," she said, dryly. "I have things to do, so let's wrap this up for now and I'll see both of you here for detention the same time tomorrow."

Juri did not give out a lot of detentions. Ohtori had hired her primarily as a fencing coach, to try to make the floundering fencing team back into the champion team it had been under her captaincy as a student. She did oversee a lot of detentions, though, since the fencing gym, for all its elegant, noble image, had a lot of filthy gear to get cleaned and sorted. It was a job for at least two people - who would have to work together, and talk to each other, and not fight for the full forty-five minutes. Juri led the sullen girls to the equipment room, gave them their directions, and sat back to watch things unfold and break up any fights. It was also just fun to force students to work together.

Never more so than with these two, though. For months Juri had watched Mitsuki hanging around the fencing gym, always at Sayaka's matches even though she didn't react. She'd watched Sayaka look up to the mezzanine before each of her matches, and look away when she realised Mitsuki was there. If anyone knew the signs of melodramatic teenage infatuation, it was Juri. And now, here was her chance to finally get the two of them to talk to each other.

The frosty glares they gave each other at the start of detention didn't dampen her hopes. As the session grew on, though, she grew more and more dismayed. Every time she looked up from he book, Mitsuki and Sayaka were working hard, cleaning and fixing, without even looking at each other. It was remarkable, in fact, how they managed to be so synchronised without saying a word to one another. The mark of two people who had either studied each other a lot, or were very compatible, or both. All the more frustrating that they wouldn't look each other in the eye. By the end of the detention, she dismissed them both without them having said a single word to each other.

Fortunately, she could rely on a diligent fencer like Sayaka to turn up to practice early every afternoon. While the rest of the fencing team were still getting changed, Sayaka was already out on the floor and warming up. It was nothing at all for Juri to call her over to the side of the gym before they began.

"I wanted to ask you about Mitsuki."

"Arisugawa-sensei, I'm so sorry -"

"No, no noeed to be sorry. Youv'e served your detention. I simply had to wonder, you're such a bright student, and an upstanding captain - what on earth were you and Mitsuki fighting for? Why would you do that?"

Sayaka's face darkened, and she looked away. "With respect, Arisugawa-sensei, you wouldn't understand."

"No?" Juri cocked her head to the side. "I have been a teenager before. In fact, at this very school, when I was fencing captain, and didn't know what to do about being in love with a girl."

Sayaka stiffened. "I'm sure that's not true. Someone as graceful and charming as you would have... you're so confident... any girl should have been honoured to receive your affections!"

"I would say the same of you, and yet it doesn't work that way."

"It's hopeless. You don't understand, you're all grown up and confident, and nobody cares if you're gay becaus eyou're so cool."

"That's... half true."

"And you're so cool that any girl you like would like you, you don't understand what it's like to be in love with someone who doesn't love you."

"I really, really do..."

"And the least they could do is stop shoving it in your face all the time, like the first time you found out they loved someone else it wasn't bad enough but they keep hanging around all the time..."

"Sayaka-san," Juri interrupted her rant. "Forgive me if I'm being too presumptuous, but have you at any point told this nameless girl that you like her?"

Sayaka let out a shocked gasp. "I could never!"

"It might be worthwhile."

She was shaking her head furiously. "No, no, I couldn't, I know she doesn't like me, to tell her how I feel would just... it would be so humiliating, and other people would know, and I would die."

Juri did not point out that Sayaka wouldn't actually die, nor that clearly some people already knew. "Still, perhaps you could try talking to her instead of trying to claw her face off?"

Sayaka just kept shaking her head. "Thank you, Arisugawa-sensei, but it's no use. I'm not like you! I will just... I will just have to carry on, in my loneliness."

Good grief, the solution was so simple! But it was clear that Juri wasn't going to get any further with Sayaka today.

"Sakaya-san, could you please go and have the team commence warm up drills? I have something I need to attend to."

"Ah! Yes, Arisugawa-sensei." She bowed, deeply. "Thank you for your wisdom."

You're not going to take it, Juri thought, as she stood up to leave. But this was adolescence, after all, was it not? She wouldn't have behaved any differently as a fifteen year old. She arguably behaved much worse.

Yet she knew it wasn't impossible for teenagers to change. Teenagers could do incredible things. They could be incredibly hurtful, or incredibly obtuse, but they could also accept their lot and move on from a crush. Or seek justice for a friend no matter how outmatched they are. Or break a cycle of abuse, and revolutionise the world. It was just even harder to get them to talk to each other.

But that was no excuse for not trying.

With the fencing team already into their warmups, Juri peered into the locker room and smiled. She walked up to her own locker as quietly as she could and slammed it in Mitsuki's face. The girl leaped back, clutching today's rose to her chest, and then glared.

"This wasn't for you! I'm... I'm delivering these for a friend!"

Juri crossed her arms and leaned back against the locker. "It might not seem like it now, but things get a lot easier when you stop pretending to be straight."

Mitsuki's face reddened. "I'm not gay."

Juri rolled her eyes. "Okay."

"Anyway, you wouldn't know what it's like! You're a grown up! You can do anything you want."  
This again? Juri sighed and stepped forward, leaning into Mitsuki's face. She gulped and leaned back, clutching the rose even harder.

"And you don't even like me, either, right?"

"That's right," Mitsuki sneered, with a relieved sort of confidence.

"You started putting roses in my locker because someone saw you and you didn't want them to know they were really for Sayaka, right?"

Mitsuki's face fell. "What? How could you... are you spying on me? And shut up, I don't like Sayaka, maybe I did once but she's a jerk now, and -"

"Yeah, that's enough." Juri put her hands on her hips and glared down at Mitsuki with all of the three inches of extra height she had on her. "I don't really care. I have a fencing team to coach. I just came here to tell you that if you don't start putting these things in Sayaka's locker instead of mine, I'm going to do it for you."

And she walked back to the familiar world of the fencing piste, feeling for the first time that Ohtori Academy was exactly where she wanted to be.


End file.
